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Syria: Barack Obama wins backing of top Republicans for military force

Speaker of the House John Boehner, centre, and National Security Advisor Susan Rice listen as U.S. President Barack Obama delivers a statement on Syria during a meeting with members of Congress at the White House in Washington, DC, on Monday. (JIM WATSON / AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

By The Associated Press

Tues., Sept. 3, 2013

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama's call for a military strike in Syria won significant momentum Tuesday, with leaders of both parties in Congress saying they are convinced that Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons against his own people and that the United States should respond.

Boehner emerged from a White House meeting with Obama and other top lawmakers and said only the U.S. has the capability to stop Assad and warn others around the world that such actions will not be tolerated.

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Obama urged Congress to hold a prompt vote once it returns from holiday next week.

The president also tried to assure the public that involvement in Syria will be a “limited, proportional step.”

“This is not Iraq, and this is not Afghanistan,” Obama said.

He met with top lawmakers hours before he leaves on a three-day trip to Europe, with a visit to Sweden and a G-20 summit in Russia

The U.S. says it has proof that the Assad regime is behind sarin gas attacks that Washington claims killed at least 1,429 people, including more than 400 children. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which collects information from a network of anti-regime activists, says it has so far only been able to confirm 502 dead.

The Obama administration argues that the United States must exert global leadership in retaliating for what apparently was the deadliest use of chemical weapons anywhere over the past 25 years.

Boehner's support is key, but opposition Republicans in Congress do not speak with one voice.

And after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, polls show most Americans opposed to any new military action overseas.

Some lawmakers say Obama still hasn't presented good evidence that Assad's forces were responsible for the Aug. 21 attack. Others say he hasn't explained why intervening is in America's interest.

Those questions come a decade after the Bush administration badly misrepresented the case that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Tuesday's meeting included Secretary of State John Kerry, Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, who were going to Capitol Hill for testimony later in the day before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. A classified briefing open to all members of Congress was planned as well.

House Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor also said he would support Obama's call for military action against Syria.

Obama also won conditional support Monday from two of his fiercest foreign policy critics, Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham.

McCain said Tuesday he is prepared to vote for the authorization that Obama seeks, but he told NBC he wouldn't back a resolution that fails to change the battlefield equation, where Assad still has the upper hand.

Sen. Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told CBS he believes the panel will back Obama if the administration explains “the full case” for the use of force as well as what it sees as the end result.

“It sends a message” not just to Syria but to Iran, North Korea and terrorist groups, Menendez said.

The administration argues that the alleged sarin gas attack last month violated not only the international standard against using such weapons but also Obama's “red line,” set more than a year ago, that such WMD use wouldn't be tolerated.

Syria's conflict has claimed more than 100,000 lives in the past 2 1/2 years. The fight has evolved from a government crackdown on a largely peaceful protest movement into a full-scale civil war scarily reminiscent of the one that ravaged Iraq over the last decade. Ethnic massacres have been committed by both sides, which each employ terrorist organizations as allies.

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